Squirrel to the rescue as always.

I'll just add one thing to your last paragraph. People in general at least here in Europe automatically assumed the motive was oil no matter if there were weapons of mass destruction or not. That's simply their view of USA.

THERES NO OIL LEFT. We're at peak oil already.

Thats a pretty good reason in my view, but again, OP go find out for yourself please.

edit - @Slime - Cmon man, Why are you so paranoid? Its pretty simple really. NO EVIDENCE = CRIMINAL ACT ACCORDING TO UN RULES OF WAR

@Squirrel - So one "leftwing" media company convinced the "rightwing" government to invade a country illegally, kill up to a million people and destabilize the middle east indefinitely for ratings? WOW, thats a good theory.

Since there are so few concrete facts and little knowledge of EXACTLY what the administration was actually thinking, almost every side of the argument can be made convincingly.  Your libs will argue it was all for oil, and your conservatives will say it truly was for WMD's and was completely justified.  

That being said, I don't really believe it was for either...sure I'm sure the thought of easier access to more oil lit up some eyes of those concerned, and I'm also sure there was at least some real worry of the weapons Iraq had.  It seems more likely, though, that the WMD argument was played up (as all dissenting info was ignored) and even the speech Colin Powell gave to the UN describing their program was weak, at best.  So what was it, really?  Who knows.  I personally believe for Bush, it had a lot to do with Iraq's attempt to kill his father.  Rumsfield was also all for the war (reportedly, after 9/11, he was quoted as telling the CIA to find everything possible to link Saddam to the attack), but I'm not really sure what his end goal was.  Perhaps the administration just wanted a national enemy, someone they knew they could crush.  Perhaps they just wanted to create an ally in the volatile area.  Perhaps they just loved war (ok, probably not).  The sad thing is, we'll probably never know 100%.  And that's sad.  So many people died and we're not even sure the exact reason.  Hopefully, that never happens again.

(As for the "there really were WMD's there"...thats a stretch.  To my knowledge, all the shells they found were dated to before the first Iraq war and before they were required to destroy weapons.  Even though they still found some shells, (again, from what I can remember) they were hardly in useful form.  Far more likely is they were simply overlooked.  The most obvious reason (and the one most seem to accept) the Saddam played hard-ball is because he was afraid of Iran.  He couldn't show weakness to them, even if it meant taking the wrath of the international community).

War... War never changes. -Fallout quote

What do you mean exactly?  And if there is a peak oil, source?  I have not seen anything related to that (when I was looking for my graph)

And who do you by "We're"? Austrailians?  (just trying to clarify)

I dont know enough of american oil companies to pick one, but don't u think that it's fishy that the (at the time) vice president of the USA who just declared war on a country known for being rich in oil is also in charge of one of the largest oil companies in the world. It just seems like a conflict of interest to me.

Does it look like its a conflict of interest? Yes.

Does that mean we went to war so Haliburton could get profits, and America steal all of Iraq's oil reserves (which is the point of the OP)? No.

Picking Haliburton as a contractor was a dumb move. I agree that it wasn't a smart one. However, given the scope of the war, the truth is, Haliburton would of been the top candidate, regardless.

Here is why, I believe, Haliburton would of been picked, anyway:

• They are a big oil company
• They have offices in the US (Texas) and MidEast (UAE)
• They are a private military contractor with experience in prior wars (Kosovo)

Because of that, Haliburton was the logical choice. Again, was it a conflict of interest? Potentially. However, lets not forget that both Clinton and Obama's administrations have contracted them for their wars, too. If it was all up to Bush and Cheney's ties, then why is Obama keeping them as a major contractor?

In the face of the facts, I just don't see how Haliburton's pick for billions of dollars in government contracts only came down to the vice president being their former CEO. Did it help? I am sure, but when you start researching the government contracts that Haliburton was awarded, they were not awarded any strange contracts that were outside their realm of abilities. Furthermore, Haliburton did a few questionable things in Iraq we all know about...Looking at the legal cases, they got hammered for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation deals, and the government outright refusing to pay them. To me, that reaks of stupidity by Haliburton and not a grand conspiracy by the vice president to award them massive contracts.

Thats why I take my stance on the issue: oil and Haliburton profits may have played a small part in the Iraq war, but when you look at the statistics, revenues, costs, imports, exports, and overall view of what all has transpired since 2003, it looks more like a clusterf*** than a scheme. Argue what you will, but I don't see us going to war souly based on what the OP is asking about. We could of invaded Canada for about 10x the oil.

In the end, my opinion is that those that want to tie the war to corporations or America's greed for oil are attempting to do it to provide some sort of 'nice' escape route for their distain of the Iraq war. Given the war in its entirety, I don't think that arguing oil nor Haliburton makes for the most reasonable negative critique of the war. There are dozens of other better sticking points than the unreasonable argument of oil for war.

The Project for a New American Century.

PNAC for short.

It's a neoconservative think tank that believes that Iraq is the most valuable piece of land on the planet because not only does it have its own rich oil resources, it connects the trade routes from Africa to Asia and Europe, and from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.  (It looks like they took that part off their website at some point after the U.S. invaded Iraq.)  They also believe that America needs to increase their military budget and spread American influence throughout the world.

Here is a link: http://www.newamericancentury.org/

It's from 1997 but they published their big plan for this century in the year 2000.  Its members include Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Jeb Bush.  A few years later these guys got in the White House, and started planning an invasion of Iraq before 9/11 happened.  Then 9/11 happened, and then we invaded Iraq.

That seems more logical than the WMD theory or the Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda theory.  Since ya know, those were all lies, or the result of some of the most horribly immoral negligence I've ever heard of.

1. Your own link disputes you.

"The U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified partly on the threat posed by the regime's alleged WMD activities. No indications of existing unconventional weapons operations were found after the war (see GSN, March 20). "

What has been found is degraded, forgotten equipment from '91 days.  Dispite US claims Iraq was not developing them.

2. Aside from Australia (Which I believe, believed the US) and Briton (which I'll never understand) the rest of those 30 countries where mainly poor(er) nations that the US financially assists and regularly pressures into helping (mainly UN votes) and they still only sent token forces for show.  

3. I concur that oil for US use wasn't the sole motivator.  Having a strong presence in the region, kicking out Suddam for various reasons, having some control over mid-east oil supply (not to necessary to sell it to themselves but by having such a stake they cannot be 'held hostage' by arabs for oil either), and probably some other factors we'll never know all came into play.  Terrorists and WMDs were a ruse for whatever the true intents were.  Unfortunately it's the US taxpayers and soldiers (not to mention countless innocent Iraqis) who pay the price.